Fallen Hero
by aces
Summary: He doesn't fix things anymore.


Author: aces  
  
Title: Fallen Hero  
  
Summary: He doesn't fix things anymore.  
  
Rating: As G as can be baby.  
  
Warnings: Melodramatic language and angst. C'mon, after a title like that, what would you expect?  
  
Disclaimers: Read my lips-B-B-C. Nothing to do with me. I'm just borrowing. Capische?  
  
Notes: I dun it again.I can't break this loop! I'm keeping the Doctor stuck on Earth in the twentieth century forever! It's not like I was even paying that close of attention when I was reading these books-it's not like I even read those books in order or knew what was going on in half of them! Stop me, somebody, please!  
  
FALLEN HERO  
  
He'd known something larger once.  
  
How does it feel to wake up one morning and know one thing alone: you don't belong?  
  
He had a feeling he'd woken up that way many mornings. But those other mornings had involved other thoughts, other knowledge as well. He hadn't always existed in a single pure moment. There hadn't always been only the present. There had been a past, and a future. Many pasts, many futures. And they had all belonged to him, he had known them all as well as he wished-intimately, vaguely, indifferently. They had been *his*.  
  
He'd known something larger once.  
  
He sat back in his desk chair and flicked at the blind, peering out the window at the irritating whine of a siren. He watched two, three, police cars slow to turn at the corner outside his apartment building. Lights flashing in the darkness. There was a full moon up there, above the smog and streetlights and other buildings of flats. His ears and eyes were in a prolonged wince against the noisiness of the sirens and lights. He seemed to be particularly sensitive to sirens and those flashing, whirling lights, too violent in the soft darkness. An irritation, a source of anger. He'd sometimes had the urge to follow the sirens he often heard outside his window to the site of the problem, solve it. He needed to make things better.  
  
He'd known something larger once.  
  
He dropped his long, slender fingers, letting the blind snap shut again with an irritated, prolonged rattle. He turned back to the book lying on the desk in front of him, attempted to concentrate on the words he found there. But still, the itch at the base of his neck seemed to be tracking the siren, following the flashing light to wherever it stopped; his fingers clenched as if they wanted to grab hold of something-a fire escape, some kind of mechanical gadget used for opening doors, the desperate clutching need of someone else's fingers.  
  
He clapped the book shut with a sigh of frustration and sat back in the comfortable desk chair, staring at the wall above the desk. He was willing himself to calm, to relax enough to read the book, have a quiet night in. There was no need to go running after other people's problems. They could solve whatever it was themselves. They didn't need him.  
  
He'd known something larger once.  
  
He wondered what it felt like to be reborn. He only knew how it felt to be born, in a single pure moment of waking up, a single pure moment of the present. Mere existence. And he'd existed only in single, pure moments of the present ever since. Someday he hoped he would remember what it felt like to be reborn. Someday he would reconnect with his self. Someday he would know those many pasts and futures again. Someday.  
  
Until then, he had to stop himself chasing the sirens and the lights, had to close the blinds against the stars and moon (shouldn't there be more than one moon? Shouldn't there be a different set of constellations in the night sky every night? Shouldn't there be a thousand, a million, night skies to choose from, and day skies too?), had to remind himself to relax and have a good quiet read.  
  
He'd solved others' problems once. He'd saved entire worlds. He'd been a wanderer in the fourth dimension; he'd been a citizen of the Universe. He was sure he hadn't needed to chase sirens before he had been born.  
  
He'd known something larger once. 


End file.
